Your online presence is essential, whether or not your company is e-commerce based. A website design that is cluttered, disengaging, unprofessional and slow to load is not going to give a good impression, and unlikely to inspire results. Furthermore, a website with relevant optimisation for Google search will have a high page ranking, thereby driving traffic to your site. With so much pressure lying on your website, it’s crucial to find the right web designer to take on the project.
Here is our quick guide to which questions you should be asking when meeting with a prospective web design agency for your company website.
1. How Long will the Project Take?
This of course varies depending on what you require. Whether the website is being built from scratch, or necessary amendments are being made to a pre-existing site will factor in. The number of projects a web design agency is already working on and the number in their team are also things to consider. Ask about what you will need to provide, where you will need to give approval. Your responsiveness in the process will also impact the timescale of the website design.
2. Can you Show Me Websites you have Previously Designed?
You want to see evidence of the website designer’s work to ensure that they can walk the walk. As well as asking to see similar projects to your own, we advise seeing a wider pool from their portfolio. Having a range of clients is a good indication of a web design agency with a flexible, creative, and experienced team.
A positive user experience is key to converting clicks into enquiries and sales. You want to see that the web design is done with the user in mind. Things to take notice of include:
• Clear and frequent Call To Action on each page • Complementary colour scheme • An engaging site that isn’t cluttered with excess animation • Ease of navigation • Immediate understanding of what the company does
3. Can you Make My Website Mobile-Friendly?
If the answer is no, you should probably move on to a new website designer. The powers that be at Google have their algorithms set to crawl mobile friendly sites first. Without a mobile-friendly web design you are likely to find yourselves left in the dust of your competitors who will appear higher in the Google search rankings. Designing your website with mobile users in mind is essential considering at the latter end of 2017, reports showed that almost 75% of internet searches now take place on a mobile device.
4. What about SEO and Content?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is what sees your website climb the listings in Google search. When a web design company is building a website they should be optimise every element of the website to meet Google’s guidelines. A high organic ranking is the product of many factors which include structured navigation, quality of content and optimisation of fundamental website elements such as Meta Data, headings, and images to name a few. These factors enable Google algorithms to easily crawl the pages for keyword inclusion and relevance.
Many web design agencies will offer content writing as part of their website design service. The advantage of this is to free up your time, safe in the knowledge that a professional is taking care of what is an integral part of website success. A content writer can deliver your business information with flair and creativity whilst optimising content for Google search.
If you have time to write it yourself, you may want to ask for guidance on the length, tone and which keywords to include. You should also consider asking an in-house content writer to review and edit your work to ensure that the keywords are featured enough without going over the top. With a keen eye for grammatical detail, they can spot a misplaced semi-colon and can also advise on whether or not the tone is too specialised at the risk of isolating lesser knowledgeable future clients.
5. How Much will it Cost?
It’s crunch time. They will have a budget in mind, but it’s important, helpful even, to have your own idea. A reputable website design agency will have considered exactly how much work and time your particular web design project will require.
Don’t fall into the trap of a cheap web design agency offering everything for £99. Somewhere down the line you’ll be searching for another web designer. For small businesses and start-ups, parting with money can be daunting, but it’s important that quality is at the forefront of your decision making to prevent loss of money, and customers, further down the line.
It would be wise to shop around and get a few quotes from local web design companies.
6. How will you Measure the Results?
When you are paying a web design agency to optimise your website, it is important to see a return on that investment, and to understand where it’s coming from. It is especially important that your chosen website designer understands where the results come from so that they can further enhance these factors in the continued website maintenance. Their response will be an indicator of their experience.
You should expect to hear a fairly technical response. If you’re not clued up on all of the tech-talk, you can ask the web designer to explain in everyday English. This is the real tell of their competence. If they understand the technical aspects well enough, they should have no problem explaining them in plain English. Some of the key words will include using Google Analytics to track where visitors are coming from and Google Search Console to monitor keywords (search queries) that are sending traffic to your website.
A proficient web design agency should be able to discuss these techniques in detail and monitor the performance of the site whilst keeping you updated.
We hope these questions will be a good start in your journey to finding the perfect web designer for your project. If you have any further questions, or would like a free consultation to see how we can deliver on your web design, get in touch.
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